Reading 2026-04 Test 10 — IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test with Answers

About this set: compiled and lightly cleaned up from real test material that test-takers recalled. IELTS draws from a global question pool, so this material circulates worldwide. To give you a complete, sittable test, material reported around the same period is assembled together — so a set may combine content from several exam dates, not one single sitting. Any audio is a recreation for practice. Organized for study convenience. Based on test-taker recalls — not official IELTS material.

Reading Passage 1: Katsushika Hokusai

Hokusai (born October 1760, Edo [now Tokyo], Japan - died May 10, 1849, Edo) was a Japanese master artist and printmaker of the Ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") school. His early works represent the full spectrum of Ukiyo-e art, including single-sheet prints of landscapes and actors, hand paintings, and surimono ("printed things"), such as greetings and announcements. Later he concentrated on the classical themes of the samurai and Chinese subjects. His famous print series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji," published between 1826 and 1833, marked the summit in the history of the Japanese landscape print.

Early years

Hokusai was born in the Honjo quarter just east of Edo (Tokyo) and became interested in drawing at the age of five. He was adopted in childhood by a prestigious artisan family named Nakajima but was never accepted as an heir—possibly supporting the theory that, though the true son of Nakajima, he had been born of a concubine. Hokusai is said to have served in his youth as clerk in a lending bookshop, and from 15 to 18 years of age he was apprenticed to a wood-block engraver. This early training in the book and printing trades obviously contributed to Hokusai's artistic development as a printmaker.

The earliest contemporary record of Hokusai dates from the year 1778, when, at the age of 18, he became a pupil of the leading Ukiyo-e master, Katsukawa Shunshō. The young Hokusai's first published works appeared the following year—actor prints of the Kabuki theatre, the genre that Shunshō and the Katsukawa school practically dominated.

To judge from the ages of his several children, Hokusai must have married in his mid-20s. Possibly under the influence of family life, from this period his designs tended to turn from prints of actors and women to historical and landscape subjects, especially Uki-e (semi-historical landscapes using Western-influenced perspective techniques), as well as prints of children. The artist's book illustrations and texts turned as well from the earlier themes to historical and didactic subjects. At the same time, Hokusai's work in the surimono genre during the subsequent decade marks one of the early peaks in his career. Surimono were prints issued privately for special occasions—New Year's and other greetings, musical programs and announcements, private verse selections—in limited editions and featuring immaculate printing of the highest quality.

Hokusai's early 30s were to prove years of personal change. His master Shunshō died early in 1793, and somewhat later Hokusai's young wife passed away, leaving a son and two daughters. In the year 1797 he remarried and adopted the name Hokusai. This change of name marks the beginning of the golden age of his work, which was to continue for a half century.

Mature years

In format, Hokusai's oeuvre from this period covers the gamut of Ukiyo-e art: single-sheet prints, surimono, picture books and picture novelettes, illustrations to verse anthologies and historical novels, erotic books and album prints, and hand paintings and sketches. In his subject matter, Hokusai only occasionally (in a few notable prints, in paintings, and erotica) chose to compete with Utamaro, the acknowledged master of voluptuous figure prints. Aside from this limitation, however, Hokusai's work encompassed a wide range, with particular emphasis on landscape views and historical scenes in which figures were often of secondary interest. Around the turn of the century he experimented for a time with Western-style perspective and colouring.

From the early 19th century Hokusai commenced illustrating yomihon (the extended historical novels that were just coming into fashion). Under their influence, his style began to suffer important and clearly visible changes between 1806 and 1807. His figure work becomes more powerful but increasingly less delicate; there is greater attention to classical or traditional themes (especially of samurai, or warriors, and Chinese subjects) and a turning away from the contemporary Ukiyo-e world.

In about the year 1812, Hokusai's eldest son died. This tragedy was not only an emotional but also an economic event, for, as adopted heir to the affluent Nakajima family, the son had been instrumental in obtaining a generous stipend for Hokusai, so that he did not need to worry about the uncertainties of income from his paintings, designs, and illustrations, which at this period were paid for more with "gifts" than with set fees.

Whether for economic reasons or not, from this time on Hokusai's attention turned gradually from novel illustration to the picture book and, particularly, to the type of wood-block-printed copybook designed for amateur artists (including the famous Hokusai manga). Very likely his intention was to find new pupils and hence new patronage, and in this he succeeded to some degree.

Though famed for his detailed prints and illustrations, Hokusai was also fond of displaying his artistic prowess in public—making, for example, huge paintings (some fully 200 square metres [about 2,000 square feet] in area) of mythological figures before festival crowds, in both Edo and Nagoya. He was once even summoned to show his artistic skills before the shogun (the military leader who, although theoretically subordinate to the emperor, was in fact the ruler of Japan).

In the summer of 1828, Hokusai's second wife died. The master was then 68, afflicted intermittently with paralysis and left alone, evidently with only a profligate grandson, who had proved to be an incorrigible delinquent. It is probably no coincidence, therefore, that before long Hokusai's favourite daughter (and pupil), O-ei, broke her unhappy marriage with a minor artist named Tōmei and returned to her father's side, where she was to stay for his remaining years.

An energetic artist, Hokusai rose early and continued painting until well after dark. This was the customary regimen of his long, productive life. Of Hokusai's thousands of books and prints, his "Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji" is particularly notable. Published from about 1826 to 1833, this famous series (including supplements, a total of 46 colour prints) marked a summit in the history of the Japanese landscape print; in grandeur of concept and skill of execution there was little approaching it before and nothing to surpass it later—even in the work of Hokusai's famed late contemporary Hiroshige.

Hokusai's frequent changes in domicile (more than 90 dwellings) and of his own name are indicative of the artist's restless nature. Besides his principal noms d'artiste (roughly one per decade), the artist had also some two dozen other occasional pseudonyms, though these were normally used as adjuncts to his principal name of a given period.

Despite his appeals to heaven for "yet another decade—nay, even another five years," on the 18th day of the fourth month of the Japanese calendar "the old man mad with painting," as he called himself, breathed his last. He was 89 but still insatiably seeking for an ultimate truth in art—as he had written 15 years earlier:

From the age of five I have had a mania for sketching the forms of things. From about the age of 50 I produced a number of designs, yet of all I drew prior to the age of 70 there is truly nothing of any great note. At the age of 73 I finally apprehended something of the true quality of birds, animals, insects, fishes, and of the vital nature of grasses and trees. Therefore, at 80 I shall have made some progress, at 90 I shall have penetrated even further the deeper meaning of things, at 100 I shall have become truly marvelous, and at 110, each dot, each line shall surely possess a life of its own. I only beg that gentlemen of sufficiently long life take care to note the truth of my words.

Legacy

Hokusai embodied in his long lifetime the essence of the Ukiyo-e school of art during its final century of development. His stubborn genius also represents, in its 70 years of continuous artistic creation, the prototype of the single-minded artist, striving only to complete a given task. Moreover, Hokusai constitutes a figure who has, since the later 19th century, impressed Western artists, critics, and art lovers alike, more, possibly, than any other single Asian artist.

1
Hokusai’s earliest artistic works mainly focused on landscapes and actors.
2
He was officially recognized as the heir of the Nakajima family.
3
Hokusai’s apprenticeship with a wood-block engraver contributed to his later success as a printmaker.
4
The series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji was the first landscape work ever created in Japan.
5
Hokusai often competed with Utamaro in producing prints of women.
6
His eldest son helped secure financial stability for him through the Nakajima family connections.
7
Hokusai changed his residence and artistic name multiple times throughout his life.
8
Hokusai showed interest in drawing at the age of five and may have been the son of a ________.
9
As a teenager, he was apprenticed to a wood-block engraver, and later studied under the Ukiyo-e master Shunshō, producing actor prints of the ________.
10
During his career, Hokusai created a wide variety of works, including landscapes, actor prints, and ________ produced for special occasions.
11
He also published sketchbooks for amateur artists known as Hokusai ________.
12
In many of his landscape works, he experimented Western-style colouring and ________ for a time.
13
Although he worked in different genres, Hokusai also competed with other masters such as ________, who was famous for figure prints.

Reading Passage 2: War of the Plants

Professor John Lovett from New England University, Australia, describes some of the ways in which plants ensure their own survival.

The general perception of plants is that they are defenceless when faced with threat from animals (including man), insects and other plants. This, however, is not the case. Plants are able to defend themselves against attack from their environment in many ways. There are two major features of plants that ensure their continuation as species. One of these relates to their physical attributes. Spinifex grass, a plant native to Australia, provides a notable example. Adapted to life in the hot, desert inland, spinifex has developed tightly rolled leaves which reduce the effects of drought stress. The hairs, or trichomes, which are found on the inner surface of the rolled-up spinifex leaf are believed to assist in minimising water loss. Trichomes also have defensive roles against predators. Many plants, such as the sunflower, have hairy leaves which are rough to the touch. When the plant is bitten by a grazing animal, the sensation is unpleasant on the tongue and the animal normally moves on to find more palatable food.

Some families of plants such as the Solanaceae, which includes the tomato, the potato and other food plants, feature glandular trichomes. In these structures a tiny sac is carried on the hair, which rises from the epidermis, or skin, of the plant. The sac contains chemicals which may perform a range of functions. For example, an insect landing on a tomato leaf and rupturing the sac is exposed to a toxic chemical which will deter it from feeding on that plant in future. In other plants of the same family, the sacs contain a natural adhesive and the unsuspecting insect landing on such a leaf and rupturing a trichome sac is held onto the plant, unable to depart. In the leaves of the nettle plant these trichomes resemble miniature hypodermic syringes. An irritant chemical is stored at the base of the "syringe". If an animal touches it, a shot of the chemical is discharged though the "needle" and into the skin of the animal. The irritation the chemical causes is a deterrent against future threat.

The poisons and glucosides of the Solanaceae and the irritant of the nettle indicate the other major method of plant survival: that some plants use chemicals to protect themselves, sometimes from each other. Chemical interactions that occur between plants are known as allelopathy, and in natural plant communities it is one of many factors which determine how plants grow in relation to one another. An example in Australia is the suppression of vegetation growth beneath eucalypt trees, an effect which decreases with increasing distance from the trunk of the tree.

The most detailed studies of allelopathy have generally been carried out on agricultural plant communities. In agriculture, allelopathy has been identified particularly with weeds, which compete with desired crop or pasture species, such as wheat, oats and grass, for environmental resources. Competition can be physical, where the growth of one plant maximises the use of water, nutrients and light to the disadvantage of another. Allelopathy, on the other hand, involves plant-produced chemicals which may poison a neighbouring plant. On the whole, weeds are far more physically and chemically aggressive than crop and pasture species. As an example, recent research on the common thorn apple, Datura stramonium, a weed found throughout Australia, has found that two powerful chemicals are released from the seed during the early stages of germination. In fact, it is necessary for the chemicals to be released from the seed coat so that the seed can germinate. Once released, the chemicals then provide a barrier that inhibits the growth of any potential plant competitor near the thorn apple seedling.

Allelopathic chemicals function in quite subtle ways. Generally they are active in small quantities, they are effective only with certain other plants, they act by disrupting the plant's natural process and they have no known residual effects. It has also been found that the activity of these chemicals may be synergistic, that is, two or more such substances may combine to produce an effect that is greater than the effects of the substances acting in isolation. These are the very attributes which are being sought in the current development of synthetic herbicides. Allelopathy is not restricted to weeds in agriculture, but allelopathic activity in crop and pasture plants appears to have diminished, possibly because plant breeders may have concentrated on improving aspects of crop quality and quantity rather than aspects of defence against natural enemies.

Allelopathic chemicals may be harvested for development as "natural herbicides", similar to the harvest of pyrethrins from the pyrethrum daisy for use as natural insecticides. Harnessing allelopathy is highly attractive to the farming industry, as at least half of the more than A$200-million annual cost of crop protection in Australia is spent on herbicides. Enhancing allelopathic activity in crop and pasture plants could reduce this enormous bill. Developing and harvesting natural herbicides might also offer advantages in addressing environmental concerns about the over-use of synthetic chemicals currently used in crop protection. In many parts of the world, communities are showing an increased willingness to pay a premium for products grown with few or no synthetic chemicals, and natural products are becoming increasingly attractive.

herbicides: chemicals that kill unwanted plants

14
an example of a plant's use of chemicals in its reproductive process
15
how some plants use a kind of glue to discourage attack
16
two examples of non-chemical methods of defence in plants
17
a definition of the term allelopathy
18
descriptions of how plants use chemicals to discourage predators
19
benefits of using plant-based chemicals to control weeds in agricultural areas
20
a description of the characteristics of allelopathic chemicals
21
an example of a physical characteristic that helps one plant conserve water
22
The "hypodermic syringes" of the nettle plant are an example of glandular trichomes.
- TRUE. TRUE
- FALSE. FALSE
- NOT GIVEN. NOT GIVEN
23
Allelopathic plants grow more successfully than plants that rely only on physical features.
24
New research into synthetic herbicides is largely focused on individual allelopathic chemicals.
25
Herbicides cost Australian farmers over A$200 million a year.
26
The two main points of this article are that plants can defend themselves in a number of ways, and that
- A. combating weeds is a major problem for Australian farmers.
- B. considerable research has been carried out into the use of plant chemicals.
- C. Australian plants have unique methods of self-protection.
- D. chemicals found in weeds can have practical benefits for agriculture.

Reading Passage 3: Music: Language We All Speak

Section A

Music is one of the human species' relatively few universal abilities. Without formal training, any individual, from Stone Age tribesman to suburban teenager, has the ability to recognise music and, in some fashion, to make it. Why this should be so is a mystery. After all, music isn't necessary for getting through the day, and if it aids in reproduction, it does so only in highly indirect ways. Language, by contrast, is also everywhere - but for reasons that are more obvious. With language, you and the members of your tribe can organise a migration across Africa, build reed boats and cross the seas, and communicate at night even when you can't see each other. Modern culture, in all its technological extravagance, springs directly from the human talent for manipulating symbols and syntax.

Scientists have always been intrigued by the connection between music and language. Yet over the years, words and melody have acquired a vastly different status in the lab and the seminar room. While language has long been considered essential to unlocking the mechanisms of human intelligence, music is generally treated as an evolutionary frippery - mere "auditory cheesecake", as the Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker puts it.

Section B

But thanks to a decade-long wave of neuroscience research, that tune is changing. A flurry of recent publications suggests that language and music may equally be able to tell us who we are and where we're from - not just emotionally, but biologically. In July, the journal Nature Neuroscience devoted a special issue to the topic. And in an article in the 6 August issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, David Schwartz, Catherine Howe, and Dale Purves of Duke University argued that the sounds of music and the sounds of language are intricately connected.

To grasp the originality of this idea, it's necessary to realise two things about how music has traditionally been understood. First, musicologists have long emphasised that while each culture stamps a special identity onto its music, music itself has some universal qualities. For example, in virtually all cultures, sound is divided into some or all of the 12 intervals that make up the chromatic scale - that is, the scale represented by the keys on a piano. For centuries, observers have attributed this preference for certain combinations of tones to the mathematical properties of sound itself.

Some 2,500 years ago, Pythagoras was the first to note a direct relationship between the harmoniousness of a tone combination and the physical dimensions of the object that produced it. For example, a plucked string will always play an octave lower than a similar string half its size, and a fifth lower than a similar string two thirds its length. This link between simple ratios and harmony has influenced music theory ever since.

Section C

This music-is-math idea is often accompanied by the notion that music, formally speaking at least, exists apart from the world in which it was created. Writing recently in The New York Review of Books, pianist and critic Charles Rosen discussed the long-standing notion that while painting and sculpture reproduce at least some aspects of the natural world, and writing describes thoughts and feelings we are all familiar with, music is entirely abstracted from the world in which we live. Neither idea is right, according to David Schwartz and his colleagues. Human musical preferences are fundamentally shaped not by elegant algorithms or ratios but by the messy sounds of real life, and of speech in particular - which in turn is shaped by our evolutionary heritage. "The explanation of music, like the explanation of any product of the mind, must be rooted in biology, not in numbers per se," says Schwartz.

Schwartz, Howe, and Purves analysed a vast selection of speech sounds from a variety of languages to reveal the underlying patterns common to all utterances. In order to focus only on the raw sounds, they discarded all theories about speech and meaning, and sliced sentences into random bites. Using a database of over 100,000 brief segments of speech, they noted which frequency had the greatest emphasis in each sound. The resulting set of frequencies, they discovered, corresponded closely to the chromatic scale. In short, the building blocks of music are to be found in speech.

Far from being abstract, music presents a strange analogue to the patterns created by the sounds of speech. "Music, like visual arts, is rooted in our experience of the natural world," says Schwartz. "It emulates our sound environment in the way that visual arts emulate the visual environment." In music we hear the echo of our basic sound-making instrument - the vocal tract. The explanation for human music is simpler still than Pythagoras's mathematical equations: We like the sounds that are familiar to us - specifically, we like the sounds that remind us of us.

This brings up some chicken-or-egg evolutionary questions. It may be that music imitates speech directly, the researchers say, in which case it would seem that language evolved first. It's also conceivable that music came first and language is in effect an imitation of song - that in everyday speech we hit the musical notes we especially like. Alternately, it may be that music imitates the general products of the human sound-making system, which just happens to be mostly speech. "We can't know this," says Schwartz. "What we do know is that they both come from the same system, and it is this that shapes our preferences."

Section D

Schwartz's study also casts light on the long-running question of whether animals understand or appreciate music. Despite the apparent abundance of "music" in the natural world - birdsong, whalesong, wolf howls, synchronised chimpanzee hooting - previous studies have found that many laboratory animals don't show a great affinity for the human variety of music making.

Marc Hauser and Josh McDermott of Harvard argued in the July issue of Nature Neuroscience that animals don't create or perceive music the way we do. The fact that laboratory monkeys can show recognition of human tunes is evidence, they say, of shared general features of the auditory system, not any specific chimpanzee musical ability. As for birds, those most musical beasts, they generally recognise their own tunes - a narrow repertoire - but don't generate novel melodies like we do. There are no avian Mozarts.

But what's been played to animals, Schwartz notes, is human music. If animals evolve preferences for sound as we do - based upon the soundscape in which they live - then their "music" would be fundamentally different from ours. In the same way our scales derive from human utterances, a cat's idea of a good tune would derive from yowls and meows. To demonstrate that animals don't appreciate sound the way we do, we'd need evidence that they don't respond to "music" constructed from their own sound environment.

Section E

No matter how the connection between language and music is parsed, what is apparent is that our sense of music, even our love for it, is as deeply rooted in our biology and in our brains as language is. This is most obvious with babies, says Sandra Trehub at the University of Toronto, who also published a paper in the Nature Neuroscience special issue.

For babies, music and speech are on a continuum. Mothers use musical speech to "regulate infants' emotional states", Trehub says. Regardless of what language they speak, the voice all mothers use with babies is the same: "something between speech and song". This kind of communication "puts the baby in a trancelike state, which may proceed to sleep or extended periods of rapture". So if the babies of the world could understand the latest research on language and music, they probably wouldn't be very surprised. The upshot, says Trehub, is that music may be even more of a necessity than we realise.

27
Section A
- i. Communication in music with animals
- ii. New discoveries on animal music
- iii. Music and language contrasted
- iv. Current research on music
- v. Music is beneficial for infants
- vi. Music transcends cultures.
- vii. Look back at some of the historical theories
- viii. Are we genetically designed for music?
28
Section B
29
Section C
30
Section D
31
Section E
32
Steven Pinker
33
Musicologists
34
Greek philosopher Pythagoras
35
Schwartz, Howe, and Purves
36
Marc Hauser and Josh McDermott
37
Charles Rosen
38
Sandra Trehub
39
Why was the study of animal music inconclusive?
- A. Animals don`t have the same auditory system as humans.
- B. Tests on animal music are limited.
- C. Animals can`t make up new tunes.
- D. There aren`t enough tests on a wide range of animals.
40
What is the main theme of this passage?
- A. Language and learning
- B. The evolution of music
- C. The role of music in human society
- D. Music for animals

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1. TRUE
This is TRUE because the passage says Hokusai’s early works were mainly landscapes and prints of actors.
2. FALSE
This is FALSE because the passage states he was not officially recognized as the heir of the Nakajima family.
3. TRUE
This is TRUE because his apprenticeship with a wood-block engraver helped him become a successful printmaker later.
4. NOT GIVEN
This is NOT GIVEN because the passage does not say if Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji was the first landscape work in Japan.
5. FALSE
This is FALSE because the passage says Hokusai did not compete with Utamaro in making prints of women; Utamaro was famous for that genre.
6. TRUE
This is TRUE because the passage says his eldest son helped him gain financial stability through the Nakajima family.
7. TRUE
This is TRUE because the passage mentions Hokusai changed his residence and artistic name many times.
8. Concubine
The answer is 'concubine' because the passage says he may have been the son of a concubine.
9. Theatre
The answer is 'theatre' because the passage says he produced actor prints of the theatre after studying under Shunshō.
10. Surimono
The answer is 'surimono' because the passage says he created surimono for special occasions.
11. Manga
The answer is 'manga' because the passage says he published sketchbooks for amateur artists called Hokusai Manga.
12. Perspective
The answer is 'perspective' because the passage says he experimented with Western-style colouring and perspective in his landscape works.
13. Utamaro
The answer is 'Utamaro' because the passage says Hokusai competed with Utamaro, who was famous for figure prints.
14. D
The answer is D because this section gives an example of a plant using chemicals in its reproductive process.
15. B
The answer is B because this section describes how some plants use glue-like substances to stop attacks.
16. A
The answer is A because this section gives two examples of plants defending themselves without chemicals.
17. C
The answer is C because this section defines what allelopathy means.
18. B
The answer is B because this section describes how plants use chemicals to keep away predators.
19. F
The answer is F because this section talks about the benefits of using plant chemicals to control weeds in farming.
20. E
The answer is E because this section describes what allelopathic chemicals are like.
21. A
The answer is A because this section gives an example of a plant feature that helps save water.
22. TRUE
This is TRUE because the passage says the nettle plant’s 'hypodermic syringes' are glandular trichomes.
23. NOT GIVEN
This is NOT GIVEN because the passage does not compare the success of allelopathic plants to those with only physical features.
24. FALSE
This is FALSE because the passage says research is not focused mainly on individual allelopathic chemicals.
25. FALSE
This is FALSE because the passage does not say herbicides cost Australian farmers over A$200 million a year.
26. D
The answer is D because the passage’s main points are about plant self-defense and the practical benefits of chemicals found in weeds for agriculture. Option A is tempting but only mentions the problem, not the solution.
27. vi
The answer is vi because Section A discusses how music is found in all cultures.
28. iv
The answer is iv because Section B talks about current research on music.
29. ii
The answer is ii because Section C covers new discoveries about animal music.
30. v
The answer is v because Section D explains how music is good for babies.
31. vii
The answer is vii because Section E looks back at old theories about music.
32. F
The answer is F because Steven Pinker is mentioned in section F.
33. B
The answer is B because musicologists are discussed in section B.
34. E
The answer is E because Greek philosopher Pythagoras is found in section E.
35. D
The answer is D because Schwartz, Howe, and Purves are in section D.
36. G
The answer is G because Marc Hauser and Josh McDermott are in section G.
37. A
The answer is A because Charles Rosen is in section A.
38. C
The answer is C because Sandra Trehub is in section C.
39. B
The answer is B because the passage says the study of animal music is inconclusive due to limited tests.
40. C
The answer is C because the passage is mainly about the role of music in human society, not just its evolution or language.

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Reading Passage 1: Katsushika Hokusai

Reading Passage 2: War of the Plants

Reading Passage 3: Music: Language We All Speak

Answer sheet

Answer key